Apple has won a patent (number 8207946) from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for a light sensitive display. It relates to touch sensitive displays.
Here's Apple's background on the invention: "Touch sensitive screens ('touch screens') are devices that typically mount over a display such as a cathode ray tube. With a touch screen, a user can select from options displayed on the display's viewing surface by touching the surface adjacent to the desired option, or, in some designs, touching the option directly. Common techniques employed in these devices for detecting the location of a touch include mechanical buttons, crossed beams of infrared light, acoustic surface waves, capacitance sensing, and resistive materials." The inventors are Adiel Abileah and Willem den Boer.
Apple has also been granted:
° Patent number 8207906 for an antenna insert for the iPhone. Circuits, methods, and apparatus for adapters and docking stations that include one or more of the following: reradiating antennas to enhance wireless signal integrity, inductive charging circuits, and wireless or optical data links.
° Patent number 8208867 for shared multiband antennas and antenna diversity circuitry for electronic devices.
° Patent number 8209540 for incremental secure back-up and restore of user settings and data (think Time Machine).
° Patent number 8209606 for a device, method and graphical user interface for list scrolling on a touch screen display.
° Patent number 8208789 for video program authoring systems and methods in a processor-based system that removes an author from consideration of low-level configuration functions during authoring.
° Patent number 8208853 for accessory device authentication. An authentication controller coupled to a first communication port of a portable computing device is allowed to provide authentication on behalf of an accessory device coupled to a second communication port of the portable computing device.
° Patent number 8208900 for secure device configuration profiles. It's for -- pay attention now -- "method for configuring a device includes receiving a first configuration profile comprising a first configuration and a first certificate and a second certificate, verifying the first configuration profile with the first certificate, receiving a user input indicating to accept the first configuration profile, configuring the device according to the first configuration, receiving a second configuration profile comprising a second configuration, verifying the second configuration profile with the second certificate and updating the device according to the second configuration, wherein the user is unaware of the updating."
° Patent number 8209446 for a DMA controller that passes destination pointer from transmit logic throughout a loophole buffer to receive logic to write data to memory.
° Patent number 8208536 for a method and apparatus for encoding using a single pass rate controller.
° Patent number 8208565 for methods for pre-processing video sequences prior to compression to provide data reduction of the video sequence.
° Patent number 8209376 for a method, apparatus, and system for providing active contents between applications activated by a plurality of computer systems.
° Patent number 8209446 for a DMA controller that passes destination pointers from transmit logic through a loopback buffer to receive logic to write data to memory.
° Patent number 8209525 for a method and system that executes program code. While executing program code, the processor encounters at least one vector instruction and at least one vector-control instruction.
° Patent number 8209749 is for an uninterrupted virtual private network (VPN) connection service with dynamic policy enforcement.